The background and a partial understanding of the problem for which this invention provides a solution is given in the U.S. patents of Leo Peters: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,804,965; 3,876,812; and 3,962,961. As such, the present invention is an important extension of, and an adjunct to, said inventions. It concerns a problem about which the oven and restaurant industries have been only vaguely aware. They both knew a problem was present, but there is no evidence to indicate they knew the precise causes of the problem. And not knowing these causes, they were never able to solve the problems.
Stated concisely and simply, the problem, and thus the overall objective of this invention, is to provide interior oven structures, components, methods, and means that, with a built-in fixed combination, will by themselves produce the result described in the foregoing Abstract; namely: "uniformly cooking three or more meat roasts to substantially equal, even, and uniform levels of doneness centered within a 10.degree. F. temperature parameter." No oven in the prior art has been thus built to produce this result.
The existence of this problem is as old as the oven industry. In view of this age the surprisingly nature of this invention is not that a solution has now been provided, but rather that there is no evidence to indicate that either the restaurant or the oven industries knew the nature or the causes of the problem. It is even more surprising when one considers that the basic causes producing the problem should have been obvious to anyone giving consideration to the basic well-known, and therefore simple, physical laws governing the causes. Since knowledge of these elementary laws is available to all in any standard physics book, and their effects should have been obvious to anyone, the surprising essence of this invention must then reside in both the recognition of the problem and the non-obviousness and the simplicity of the solution.
The situation that triggered the inventors' research on this problem is that described in said prior art inventions of Leo Peters. These inventions were developed, and their problems successfully solved, by concentration on the packaging, transportation, and cooking of single beef roasts. These inventions solved the problems for one or two roasts cooked in conventional prior art ovens. But a successful commercial application of these inventions quickly escalated the number of roasts and resulted in a need for cooking three or more roasts in a single oven cavity.
Larger food-serving establishments such as hotels, restaurants, and institutions require a multiple number of beef roasts to be cooked at one time. With this need, an entirely new set and series of problems made their appearance to obstruct the overall objective stated above. The increase in problems arose from the simple increase in the number of beef roasts in an oven to three or more. This simple increase in number had an immediate, direct, and extended effect on the application of the physical laws governing the distribution of heat in an oven and thus, in turn, on the finished results of cooked beef roasts.
When a single meat roast is cooked in an oven, the roast itself is one of the factors that influences the finished result. Its particular characteristics as defined by its shape, weight, density, thickness, length, composition, and distribution ratio between protein, fat, and bone, all have a bearing on the methods and means required to produce a desired finished result.
Despite a lack of uniformity among a multiple number of meat roasts within a single oven, the oven is expected to produce uniform finished results. It is expected to do this by regulating and manipulating the level, distribution, evenness, velocity, intensity, stratification, cycling time, and duration of the heat within an oven.
The theories and practices embodied in the prior art ovens relating to this regulation and manipulation are many and diverse. Some ovens conform to proven laws of physics; others do not. Some are beneficial to the finished results; others are actually harmful. Many oven structures, thermostats, thermometers, timers, rheostats, heating elements, etc., have been devised for regulating and manipulating oven heat. Yet, under the prior art, the desired finished results have not satisfied the practitioners in the meat roasting industry.
The most outstanding failure of the oven industry to perform up to the satisfaction of the roasting practitioners has been with beef roasts where the levels of doneness are described by such terms as: rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well, and well-done. Separating each of these levels is a temperature variant of only 5.degree. internal meat heat. Thus, for a beef roast to be rare, the accepted USDA internal temperature levels should be 140.degree. F. for rare; 145.degree. for medium-rare; 150.degree. for medium; 155.degree. for medium-well; and 160.degree. or more for well done. This invention is concerned mainly with the first four levels of doneness because their temperature parameters are so critically narrow. The well-done level can be accomplished quite easily over a wide range of temperatures from 160.degree. to 212.degree..
In the prior art these levels of doneness were acceptable to the beef roasting industry if only the center of such roasts were done to these levels. The idea of having such levels of doneness throughout the entire body of a roast, from skin to skin, generally appeared to be an unrealizable level of perfection. Sporadic attempts were made to understand and conquer the problems. Many of these attempts were ill-conceived and/or executed. There is no evidence in the art to indicate that any of the attempts were approached with a studious regard for the many factors that influence a fine finished result. All of them produced results considerably below the overall objective of this invention.
The failures of past attempts produced a fatalistic attitude of mind among the practitioners of beef roasting as regards the achievability of an ideal level, evenness, and equality of doneness, especially with the most popular beef roast: prime ribs. This fatalistic attitude becomes understandable when one becomes aware of the astonishing lack of knowledge in the oven industry about the interior heat factors required to produce the desired level, evenness, and equality of doneness.
During the past several decades the demand from the commercial practitioners of prime rib roasting for methods and means to improve the doneness results for prime ribs has been ever-present, insistent and increasing. For purposes of illustration, therefore, we will use this most difficult of all beef roasts, a prime rib of beef, as the exemplary item with which to describe the methods and means of this invention, with the understanding that they apply to other meat roasts for which a specific level of close-temperatured doneness is desired.